"Years after years have past away, Less light and gladsome! Why Not signed, but in the hand-writing of W. S. Landor. The reply of an octogenarian (the elder D'Israeli) to a beautiful lady, who wrote him some verses on his birth-day, May 11, 1845. "A wreath from a muse, a flower from a grace, Are visions of fancy which memory can trace. Addressed to Lady Blessington at Genoa by Lord Byron :"You have asked for a verse, the request In a rhyme it were strange to deny ; What Lawrence has pencilled so well; "I am ashes where once I was fire, And the Bard in my bosom is dead; "My life is not dated by years, There are moments which act as a plough, And there is not a furrow appears, But is deep in my heart as my brow. "Let the young and the brilliant aspire To sing, while I gaze on in vain ; Answer by Lady Blessington. "When I asked for a verse, pray believe "Time has touched with rude fingers my brow, I the praise due to beauty should seek. "And as pilgrims who visit the shrine Of some saint, bear a relic away; As a treasure, when distant I stray. Whose chords can such rapture bestow, Hide the ravaging marks from our view." Lines of Lord Erskine, for an inscription for a collar of a lap-dog of the Countess of Blessington: "Whoever finds and don't forsake me, And he shall see her for his pains." Note accompanying lines to Lady Blessington, by Thomas Moore: -: "MY DEAR LADY BLESSINGTON, "When persons like you condescend so to ask, how are poor poets to refuse? At the same time, I confess I have a horror of Albumizing, Annualizing, and Periodicalizing, which my one inglorious surrender (and for base money too) to that Triton of literature, Marryat, has but the more confirmed me in. At present, what with the weather and my history, I am chilled into a man of mere prose. But as July approaches, who knows but I may throw into song, and though-as O'Connell has a Vow registered in heaven against pistols, so I have against periodicals; yet there are few, I must say, who could be more likely to make a man break this (or any vow) than yourself, if you thought it worth your while. "And so with this gallant speech, which from a friend of a quarter of a century's date is not, I flatter myself, to be despised, I am, my dear Lady Blessington, "Most truly yours, To the Countess of Blessington : "THOMAS MOORE." "What shall I sing thee? shall I tell Dazzling the heart with such surprise Verses for an album, written at the request of the Countess of Blessington, by George Colman. "August 1, 1819. 1. "How have I sworn-and sworn so deep, 2. "Entirely generous Mr. Thrale, Who sold brown stout, and haply ale, Of whom Sam Johnson said one day, 3. "Yet the allusion holds not here Mine is but Poetry's small beer, "I believe it was to a piper; but it sounds more poetical to say, to our own singing."-T. M. And every line will shew it: The Brewer and the Poet. 4. "Still, why again be scribbling? List! There is a Pair I can't resist, 'Tis now no drudging duty, 5. "But hold! I fear my prudence sleeps- Whose leaves, though I ne'er spied 'em, 6. "Dare I, in lame and silly pride, 7. "Or, if I venture, cheek by jowl, With the Anacreontic soul, That master, to a tittle, Of elegant erotic lore, Then they, who my weak page explore, Not half so Great as Little. |